Pastoral Care at St Mark's 

'Several years ago, I worked with a team of people in the North West of England as part of the pastoral care network who defined Christian pastoral care as the activity which flows from the attitude and commitment to love one another because we ourselves, are first loved by God. Pastoral care is ultimately concerned with developing quality relationships and enabling one another to recognise, follow and become more like Jesus. 

Pastoral Carers might be seen as part of the ALL, SOME and FEW of the Body of Christ.

The ‘All’ - All Christians have a God-given responsibility to ‘care’ for others – this is a quintessential aspect of the outworking of what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ. Its emphasis is upon growing and maintaining a Christ centred loving relationship with others, and it mostly happens in informal and often unplanned ways. The ALL help to grow pastoral churches which care for others in organic ways, rather than within formalised pastoral structures.

The ‘Some’ - Some Christians are particularly gifted and called by God to provide pastoral care in a more focussed way. This might include offering and providing pastoral care in more planned or formal ways, perhaps as part of a dedicated team of pastoral carers. It might involve the Pastoral Carer undertaking training, developing knowledge, insights, skills and expertise in pastoral care at a greater depth than ‘the all’. The SOME use their gifts for the good of the whole body.

The ‘Few’ - A few Christians are particularly called and gifted to resource, lead or co-ordinate the work of pastoral care in planned, structured and formalised ways. The FEW may have specialist knowledge, experience and skill to enable, encourage and equip the pastoral care work of ‘the all’ and ‘the some’, and provide them with, for example, training, leadership, help to reflect on their practice and support.

With this in mind, former Vicar, Saju has envisioned a need to set up a pastoral team, reaching out to the parish, sharing God’s loving care. This is in the hope of equipping of God’s people so they can do His work, so that the Church, the Body of Christ, can be built up until we come to unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son, that we will be mature and full-grown in the Lord ……… so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love (e.g. Ephesians 4:11-16).'

                            - Rev Saju Muthalaly ( Former Vicar)
                           

THE TEAM
 

Paul Smith	Denise Young	Valerie Flick
Catharina Olsson Gisleskog	Jane Bannar-Martin	Janet Aldington
Trevor Dyer	Sandi Chapman	Janet Aldington

GET IN TOUCH

If you are happy for the pastoral team to get in touch with you, please click the link below and complete the form to give your details and consent, and one of the members of the team will be in touch.
Alternatively, you can send your request to pastoralcare@stmarksgillingham.org.

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